Since I had woken up from being darted with a tranquiliser by a rival club - the Keres MC, when my brothers and I went to attack their president I had been in a blinding rage. Not only because of the tranquiliser but because the dart had contained my mate’s blood.

As soon as I was tranquilised with her blood the bond was established. Most of the rage flowing through me was because of not being able to touch my mate. My mate! I had never thought I would call anyone mine. I had been adamant that I did not want a woman in my life. Women were trouble. How could any Elemental man want someone in their life who made them vulnerable? That made them live for one person only? Now I don’t have a choice, I either find my mate or the rage will slowly start to consume me and drive me crazy.

I can already feel the bond that my girl has over me and I don’t even know who she is or where she is. Knowing that she might have been taken and she is suffering because of me only infuriates me more. Draco my brother, our MC President informed us that we are going to attack the Keres MC clubhouse because of what they have done to me. The thought of wiping out as many of them as possible manages to calm my fury a little.

We have been in a constant war with the Keres MC for centuries. We are the only ones who can stop them, which is why they have now found a way of destroying us, through our mates. We think that we might know how they’re doing this, but we can’t confirm it yet.

So far Celmund our tech guy has been able to test Gabriela, Bjarni’s woman. Our plan is to test the other women in our midst. Jasmine however, is pregnant, therefore we must wait until she goes into a trance without being forced to. Wulf will not hear of us testing her unless it happens naturally. All our mates have a certain gift which is why they are compatible with us, even though they are fully human.

Jasmine will go into a trance, and paint future or past events. Gabriela can foretell the future and now the past from just touching someone. Their gifts have expanded since they bonded with their men. I wonder what my woman’s gift is, I hope whatever it is doesn’t hurt her. I’ve been told that with Jas, after her trances, she is completely drained and usually needs to sleep or take Wulf’s blood. Apparently before, it was worse as she used to be able to feel the pain of whoever she had the trance about, but since bonding with her man this has changed. Gabriela is the same. When someone touches her she has a vision. She usually feels the pain of whatever is going to happen to that person in the future. I believe that with time this will also change.

After hearing a knock, I walk towards my bedroom door; Bion is standing outside. Bion our medic, has saved all our lives a few times. He is also working together with Celmund trying to figure out how we can save the women who the Keres are planning to abduct, before they do. He was the one who had mentioned that I had been tranquilised with the dart and what the implications were, after I had awakened.

“Hey brother, how are things?” he asks with a concerned look in his eyes. I realise that my brothers are concerned about me and are doing their level best to find my woman. We’ve been together for centuries and are more than just club brothers. If one of us has a problem we all work together to sort it out, we are a family.

“I’m holding up. You know how it is,” I confess.

“Well we all getting ready to leave. Are you sure you’re up to it?” Bion asks

“I’m looking forward to eliminating those fuckers. Have Burkhart and the others arrived yet?” Burkhart, Ceric and Bjarni had gone with Gabriela to her Bakery. Apparently there was something going on there.

“They will be here in about ten minutes. Ceric contacted us when they left,” he answers, as we both start making our way towards the garage, where I see that the brothers are all strapping on their weapons preparing for the upcoming fight. I walk to where I keep all the explosives, on my touching a hidden spot on the wall, a panel moves, exposing a keypad. I punch in the code and a sliding door opens allowing me to enter the huge room where we keep all our ammunition, weapons and explosives.

I’m still packing the explosives that I’m going to need when I hear the SUV pull up with Bjarni and Gabriela, followed by Ceric and Burkhart on their bikes. A few minutes later I feel Burkhart behind me. Burkhart is closer to me than any blood brother could be, even though at the compound we are all close. H always has my back, the two of us have a special connection. Burkhart has seen me at my worst and helped me through it, and vice versa. There are things about Burkhart that none of the brothers know except for me.

“How’re you doing B?” Burkhart asks quietly. Those that don’t know Burkhart would never know how deeply he feels for those that are close to him. He hides his feelings with a rough exterior, but still his feelings run deep.

“I don’t know Dude, to be honest this is messing with my head big time,” I confess, looking over at him as I continue to pack what I’m going to need. “You know that after my brother, I didn’t want a mate, now all I can do is to think about a woman that I don’t even know or what her name is.”

“What happened to your brother isn’t going to happen to you B, I won’t let that shit happen again.” Burkhart’s words are forceful as if he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince me. I place my hand on his shoulder squeezing it in understanding. Burkhart is the only one who knows the depth of my emotional turmoil and how it has affected me. “We are going to find her, believe that,” he states, as Draco calls everyone to mount up.

As I mount my bike I see Bjarni kissing Gabriela goodbye, and just behind them is Wulf with Jasmine who is expecting their first child. Will I be like them someday or will this just destroy me?

“Okay Lover Boy, let’s get going.” I hear Draco call out to Bjarni.

“That goes for you too Wulf, don’t you think you should lay off that shit for a while,” Draco teases as he starts his bike. Drawing away from Jasmine I see Wulf put up both his hands, showing all of us the finger. Jasmine and Gabriela start laughing as they move towards each other, waiting to see us all off. Ceric moves to stand behind them, placing a hand on each of their shoulders with a wide grin on his face. Ceric is a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. He has his demons but his way of hiding them is behind a happy façade. He doesn’t like to see anyone sad or depressed. If he can’t lighten their mood it affects him deeply. Since waking up in the infirmary with my bouts of rage, he has kept away from me. I know it’s because of what I’m going through, and it scares him.

“Take your hand off my woman Fucker, before I break it,” Wulf calls out. At that, Ceric starts snickering as he lifts his hands in the air. Most of the men are chuckling at his silliness; it helps distract everyone from what we are on our way to do.

Pulling away from the compound we make our way towards the Keres MC clubhouse and hopefully towards their extinction.

An hour later I have placed the explosives required to breach the clubhouse. “Brandr, are all the explosives in place?” I hear Draco asking in my earpiece. A mile away from the Keres MC clubhouse we hide our bikes and made the rest of the way on foot.

Celmund had provided us with a satellite image of their property, therefore we had an idea of where we could breach the clubhouse and where we couldn’t. Their clubhouse, contrary to ours is in a rundown part of town, with quite a few vacant factories surrounding their substantial property.

The clubhouse is surrounded by a two and a half metre wall with electric fencing on top. Their main gate is steel, and when Cassius and Bjarni went scouting they reported having seen guard dogs.

“They’re in place,” I reply. Burkhart and I had placed the explosives by the main gate and on the back wall. We have two teams going in at the same time. I’m with Burkhart, Wulf and Caelius are at the back. Draco, Cassius, Bion and Bjarni will be going in through the front.

“On my count blow it up brother. Everyone get into place,” Draco orders. As soon as I hear his order I blow it up. We are all ready for this; therefore, as we make our way through the great hole that used to be their wall and into their clubhouse. Everyone had been briefed to be careful in case my mate or any other kidnapped woman was around. Rushing in through their back entrance I encounter one of them rushing out of his room with a gun in his hand. Before he can lift his gun I am on top of him and have put him out of his misery. We make our way through the clubhouse, killing some and wounding others.

I check all the rooms we walk through to make sure that we don’t miss anyone. The guys have gathered all the wounded Keres placing them all in their main area. Looking around, I see five women among the Keres, but these women look like Jezebels and none of them call to me, therefore they can’t possibly be my mate.

“Bjarni, Brandr scout the perimeter and see what you can find!” Draco calls out to us as he walks into the main area where we are all gathered. Bjarni is already walking out the door. I follow him. Looking around I notice that there are a few bikes parked outside a garage area with the main door standing open. Bion is already in there, so I walk around the building until I see some kind of shed structure a few meters away.

“Bjarni, over here!” I shout. He turns from the direction he was headed for and makes his way towards me.

“Do you sense anyone inside?” Bjarni asks. As a fire bender I can usually sense body heat from a distance or through thin walls as is the case now. I can also draw out someone’s rage into myself which allows me to produce more fire if need be.

“I don’t sense anyone inside. Do you want see what they have in there?” Bjarni nods making his way towards the shed. At the door we find it locked with an extra padlock on it. With a mighty yank Bjarni doesn’t just break the lock but he pulls out the whole door. He looks over at me and raises his eyebrows. If I wasn’t in such a foul mood I would find Bjarni’s antics funny.

Moving inside we find shelves on all four sides of the structure, but there is nothing interesting in here. I need to leave this place as I’m engulfed with feelings of such loss now. I know that with time the loss of my mate will be felt more and more unless I’m able to find her, but this sudden hopelessness has caught me by surprise. As I’m about to leave the structure Draco appears at the door with his cell to his ear.

“Check behind the shelves, apparently there’s a panel to a hidden compartment.” Bjarni and I move the shelves off the walls until we reach the back wall and find a hidden door.

“Well, well look what we have here,” Bjarni comments, “there are packages with drugs if I’m going to guess, stacked up against the walls.”

“Yeah, we found the area. What else did they see?” Draco asks. He must be talking to Celmund who is at the compound with Jasmine, Gabriela and Ceric. “On the floor.” He points, looking at the floor. Looking down I find a dirty rug. Why would they put a rug in the shed? Taking hold of the rug, I pull it to one side, and surprise, surprise I find a trapdoor. I look up at Bjarni’s surprised face. If Draco hadn’t pointed it out to us we would never have looked under the rug.

Bjarni takes hold of the handle pulling up the trapdoor to allow us access to downstairs. The first thing I notice is the pitch darkness. It doesn’t look like they have anyone down here, maybe they are storing more contraband.

“It’s as dark as fuck down here, bring me a light,” I say as I start making my way down a set of stairs. After descending a few stairs I feel a string close to my head, pulling on it the lights come on. Making my way to the bottom I see that there are three doors to what looks like cells. It also smells as if they keep their dead bodies in here.

“Fuck, Bjarni come down here. There are three cells that have doors with keypads that I might need your help in opening.” Bjarni makes his way down the stairs, stopping halfway before he continues.

“Damn Brother whatever is down here must be dead, going by the smell of this place.” Bjarni reaches the bottom and walks towards the first door to my left, looking at the door he hits his fist on it. “Is there someone in here?”

“Stop!” Draco calls out from the top of the stairs. “Apparently Jas and Gabriela also saw explosives strapped to a door down here.” Looking around I wonder which door? Or maybe it’s all the doors. I’m going to need my equipment, so I can check. I’m also going to need more light. The light down here is way too dim.

“Motherfuckers!” these assholes have always got something up their sleeves. Why would they rig up explosives to the doors? What do they have down here to hide? I make my way back to go and get my equipment when Draco stops me with his next words.

“Brandr … They say that she is down here.” What? My mate is down here. Why wouldn’t she answer when Bjarni called out?  I rush the rest of the way up the stairs to get my stuff that I had left outside when I had placed the explosives. I see Burkhart walking into the shed with my satchel. Somehow, he always knows when I need him.

“Thank you, Brother.” I take the satchel and place it on the floor as I open it to take what I need. “I’m going to need more light.” I call out to no one in particular, but I know that soon I will have more light.

I make my way back downstairs, I can feel my hands shaking but if it’s true and my girl is down here I’m apprehensive about what I might find. I start on the door that Bjarni banged on. Placing my micro-mini wire camera under the door, I move it around inside. Burkhart has followed me downstairs he always helps to place explosives, therefore he knows what I need and when I need it.

“Is there anything?” I ask. Burkhart is looking at the screen as I manoeuvre the camera.

“It’s pitch black in there but from what I can see there isn’t anything. Let’s try from the top,” he suggests. I withdraw the camera and place it through the opening at the top of the door; starting from one corner to the other.

“Stop, there’s a wire.” I stop where I am, and look around as he turns the tablet towards me.

“Yip, that leads somewhere. There are explosives in this cell, but that wire tells me that they can deactivate it from somewhere. Let’s check the others first.” I move from the left cell to the right one and then to the one at the end of the small corridor. “They’re all the same; this is a central deactivation system. Look around; there should be something here or upstairs that allows us to disarm these explosives.”

After looking around for what seems like hours, we find a switch hidden close to the doorframe at the bottom of the stairs. If we hadn’t been looking for it, we would never have found it.

“What do you think B, should we flip the switch? What if it explodes?” Burkhart is looking at me questioningly, but I know that these doors have been rigged to explode if they are opened without deactivating them. They haven’t been rigged to go off if someone flips the switch. I draw near and flip the switch. A beeping sound starts and then stops.

“They are deactivated,” I confirm looking at him winking.

“Did you know that it would deactivate, or did you take a chance?” he asks excitedly. Burkhart is the daredevil in our group he also is no match when it comes to hand-to-hand-combat. Anything that is dangerous he is more than happy to try out.

“Sorry Dude, I knew.” I see his face fall and then he lifts his shoulders in a shrug.

“It was still exciting,” he mutters.

I head towards the first door on our right. I punch in the password into the keypad that Gabriela and Jasmine had seen in a vision, the door clicks. Pulling it open, I enter. The light from the corridor shines inside but it’s completely empty. I can tell that someone has been here before. The smells of death in this cell is unmistakable.

“Nothing!” Burkhart calls from the cell on the left of the stairs. I walk towards the cell at the end of the corridor and feel my heart beating at an erratic pace. I can’t tell if anyone is inside, as the walls are too thick, therefore I can’t sense any body heat. Punching in the code, I hear the click that opens the door. I hold my breath, scared of what I might find on the other side.

“You want me to do it Brother?” Burkhart asks right behind me. He places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes lightly. I shake my head as I open the door. The first thing that assaults us is the smell of urine and faeces. I hear Burkhart gag behind me, but I’m to frozen with shock to do anything. A woman is lying on the stone floor in a short-torn summer dress; more a scrap of material then a dress. It looks like she has long hair, but with the light behind me I can’t tell if it’s brown or black because of all the filth in it. I don’t know if she is alive because her eyes are closed, and I can’t see her chest move. She is wounded in various places and bruised.

I don’t think I can go to her, especially when I see maggots on one of her wounds. I’m too late; no one could survive what she has been through.

“God I’m sorry Brother.” Only then do I realise that I have fallen to my knees, when I feel Burkhart’s arms encircle me from behind. I can feel my eyes are misted with tears, but I haven’t been able to take my eyes away from the woman. Draco had told me that Gabriela and Jasmine had said my woman’s name was Aria. Such a beautiful name, I can’t even tell what she looks like as her face is so swollen on the one side. Then I see her finger move slightly and my heart starts to race again. I am on my feet and beside her before I take my next breath. Is it possible or am I imagining things?

“Aria?” I squat next to her looking at the eye that isn’t swollen shut and then I see a slight flicker as she tries to open it. “Oh God, you’re alive.” I stroke her face with one of my fingers trying to appease her fears.

“Hold on Sunshine, I’m taking you out of here.” I place my hand under her legs and then the other behind her neck picking her up. I can feel her tense in my arms, but she doesn’t make a sound. I hear Burkhart say that he’s going to go call Bion and then he leaves. I cuddle her close to my chest. I don’t care if she is dirty or that I’ve opened some of her wounds again. By moving her they are bleeding again. Bion will soon get her fixed up.

“Don’t worry Sunshine, we have a medic that will attend to you really soon. You will be better in no time.” What if I’m lying to her? She seems so fragile I can hardly sense her energy. I know that she is holding on by a thread.

“Please, please hang on. I promise all will be okay I won’t let anyone else hurt you.” I make my way up the stairs towards Bion and hopefully her quick and painless recovery. As I walk out of the shack with her in my arms I see Bion hurrying towards me with his medical haversack. When he sees us he hesitates in shock, but then he starts to run towards us.

“Damn Brandr, is she conscious. Put her down let me have a look at her Brother.” I really don’t want to lay her on the ground outside with everyone looking at her, but she is in such a critical state that I’m worried she will die in my arms. I kneel placing her gently on the ground. As I start to withdraw my arms she stiffens. I take hold of her hand and straighten the strips of cloth over her body, trying to preserve her modesty.

“She hasn’t opened her eyes completely, but I think she’s conscious as she stiffens sometimes. I think in pain.” When Bion starts to examine her, her fingers that are in my hand tighten slightly. I feel like tearing him away from her, but I know that she needs his help right now.

“Motherfuckers!” I hear Burkhart’s angry voice behind me. Suddenly Aria starts to convulse on the ground.

“What the fuck did you do?” I shout at Bion, ready to decimate him.

“It’s the mating. You touched her, now you need to give her blood.” As soon as he says that it’s the mating, I understand, I’m already tearing at my wrist with my teeth. When there is enough blood flowing, I place my wrist over her mouth and let the blood trickle in. It takes a while, but she starts to calm. As soon as she quietens Bion asks me to carry her to our SUV, that Cassius has already brought from where we hid it. Bion, Burkhart and I rush towards the SUV. I notice that some of the other brothers have already tied-up, and are transporting the men who we captured in one of the vans that was parked in their clubhouse.

From experience, I know that the van was checked for any tracking devices or we would never have used it. Caelius and Draco are sitting in the front of the van with Cassius in the back. Draco nods to me as I walk past. I know that my brothers are all worried for my mate, as they see her in my arms. I hear some of them swear. Bjarni even punches the clubhouse outer wall when we walk past him. Burkhart opens the back door to the SUV, helping me manoeuvre myself and Aria into the SUV. Bion is already sitting on the other side of me, taking out some of his medical equipment to start cleaning my girl’s wounds.

Now that we’re out in daylight I can see the state that she is in. I will hunt and kill every single fucker who thought they could lay a hand on her. Most of her body is bruised. Her nails are broken and raw, and it shows that she must have tried to free herself at some stage or scratched someone. I bring my forehead down against hers, soon I will have her in safety. No one will ever have an opportunity to touch her again.